JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Looking for marmalade, I discovered a forgotten jar of this - made in 2005, matured to perfection. It's Delia, from her Christmas book. She also uses this to make a quick sauce for roast pork, so it's quite useful for cooking ahead if you've got some spare time. I made it as a Christmas present for 2005, with the sauce recipe attached.

Cut the apricot into small pieces. Temper the coriander seeds in a dry frying pan, then bash them in a mortar. Put everything together into a large stainless steel saucepan & heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer half-covered for 45 minutes or so. You want soft onions and fruit, but you don't want it too thick, and it will carry on thickening as it cools.

Spoon into sterilised jars. I generally do this by putting them through a dishwasher cycle. Or you can put them into a hottish oven until they are too hot to handle.

Spiced apricot sauce for roast pork

You make this exactly as if you were making gravy: sprinkle a little flour onto the pan juices, mix to a paste, add white wine - enough to make the sauce - bubble and reduce, stirring all the time to keep smooth. Stir in a good quantity of the chutney, also some orange zest, and simmer for about 5 minutes, until the flour is cooked.

6 comments:

St Delia of Norwich City is not one of my cooking idols - my kitchen shelf is a Delia-free zone. My Mother has a few of her books and has occasionally recommended a recipe (I make sure I tweak it so it isn't pure Delia). I'm sure that most of the recipes are perfectly good - but the presentation puts me off.

There was one Delia TV moment which I remember making me smile - she calmly explained everything about using fresh coconut, she extracted the watery juices and then warmed the coconut in a low oven as this would make it easier to break open. She put the coconut in a neat freezer bag and said it would be safer to do the next bit outside. Then on her ever so nice patio she laid her coconut in it's bag - an wallopped it hard with a massive hammer!!!!! For a teeny moment Delia looked normal.

Yes, she's not my favourite, either, although I suppose you could say that she's the JK Rowling of the cookery world - gets people started. But it's amazing how many books she's sold on the back on such a wooden performance .... and the new cheating thing is how she began, I seem to remember.

I remember once seeing a programme about her and Norwich FC, which involved a lot of very un-football food in the restaurant - prawn sandwich anyone?

And, yes, it really is worth trying, especially if you're a chutney novice, because it's fairly quick and very straightforward

Thanks for the links! The recipe is from Emma (guest spot on my blog) and is loosely based on a Prue Lieth recipe from her veggie book. I've checked out the recipe and Emma's is better by far, in my opinion! The star of the melange is the béchamel, egg and feta cheese topping. Danny adores it.

The Delia debate is always interesting. I find the Delia Online site a great, accessible and quick resource. We have some Delia books and some Prue Lieth. The latter wins hands down for depth of content but Delia's have prettier pictures and some of the recipes are wonderful. I will be bloggiing about this soon.

Thanks for the links! The recipe is from Emma (guest spot on my blog) and is loosely based on a Prue Lieth recipe from her veggie book. I've checked out the recipe and Emma's is better by far, in my opinion! The star of the melange is the béchamel, egg and feta cheese topping. Danny adores it.

The Delia debate is always interesting. I find the Delia Online site a great, accessible and quick resource. We have some Delia books and some Prue Lieth. The latter wins hands down for depth of content but Delia's have prettier pictures and some of the recipes are wonderful. I will be bloggiing about this soon.

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About

We live in the countryside near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. This blog describes the food I make for our family: I'm not an expert, but I do cook from scratch every day. It's partly a health thing (less salt and sugar, better quality ingredients), partly because I prefer to buy food as locally as possible (great butcher nearby, a lovely Italian deli, I belong to a food co-op, a weekly vegetable box, flour from local mills). I try not to use supermarkets much, but don't always succeed. Each year, I grow a little more of our food, mainly herbs and tomatoes; I'm far too idle to grow maincrop potatoes, but this year we're growing salads and many more vegetables. We keep hens; I plan to keep bees, which would make me a third generation beekeeper. I bake all our own bread, although my children would prefer to be allowed to eat sliced white in peace.

From the start in 2005, I have written this blog mostly for myself: to help me keep track of recipes and links. I'm not saying what I do is best (or even better); I'm just writing down what I do. It gives me huge pleasure that my children use this blog when they want a recipe; I am also proud of the number of cyberfriends I have made (and met) over the years.

If you want to contact me, this is where to start: joannacary AT gmail DOT com

I'm happy to publish comments so long as I know who they are from. I have comment moderation for older posts, to block irritating spam which appears daily from Japan on a couple of posts. I will always delete anonymous comments, however flattering.